training ride

did a 45 miler with training partner becky yesterday - avg 17.8 mph- came back south into an increasing headwind - becky has been training for about 2 yrs now and completed her first 70.3 triathlon in around 5:40, which is pretty much off the chart for a 42 yr old novice - her first marathon was under 4 hrs after only 6 months of training - pretty soon she'll ditch me for better competition and i'll have to start all over(this has happened 3 times!) maybe if i fill her tires with sand.........

tour of tucson mountains

did the tour of the tucson mountains bike ride last saturday with better than expected results - i managed to beat my previous years timen by around 20 minutes and averaged 1.2 mph faster - so now i ask myself: what went right? i didnt use a computer on the bike this year and rode strictly by perceived effort - i think this helped by not trying to be a slave to a certain speed throughout the ride - i believe i was more patient during the mild climbs on the course; managing the hills instead of letting the hills manage me - i didnt get into the starting chute with the 'gold' riders and had to jump gaps for the first 15 miles to get with a good group - obviously this cost valuable energy, but i did these efforts carefully and sometimes with others riders - it never got too warm during the ride( i think a little cooler than last year) - i only drank one bottle of energy drink during the ride and took no nutrition - this is something i have to work on - i had no rapid heart episodes this year; this has been improving with more moderate intensity long distance training - as far as equipment: i used the same bike, but this year i used 9 yr old ksyrium clincher rims with 195gr $15 forte tires at 110lbs - last year i used zipp 404 tubulars with 215gr $85 tufo lites at 140lbs - go figure! last year i hooked up with a good pace group on the last 25 mile stretch north - this year i spent about five of those miles basically riding 'alone in a group' - finally i 'cajoled' about 8 riders to work together and it went fantastic - one guy was around 60 years old and was taking emnrmous pulls - what really helped is that people were patient when some of the weaker riders pulled at a slightly slower pace - this is where it usually breaks down - all in all a great experience